Michelle Rhee: Not all charters created equal

San Diego  Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of schools in Washington, D.C., brought her controversial brand of reform to San Diego on Wednesday when she was featured as the keynote speaker at the California Charter Schools conference at the convention center.

Rhee is a champion of the school choice movement because she said it often gives options to students who are otherwise trapped into attending bad neighborhood schools.

Although many charter organizers see her as the unofficial spokeswoman for their cause, Rhee said many are surprised to learn she wants to shut some of them down for poor performance or mediocrity.

Charters “want me to advocate for them,” Rhee told the U-T San Diego editorial board before delivering her speech Wednesday. “When we talk about charter accountability, they get a little squeamish.”

Charters are independently operated publicly funded schools that are exempt from some local and state education codes in exchange for their promise to raise student performance through often nontraditional methods.

Charters have a mixed record when it comes to academics. Some excel and serve as leaders of innovation, while others have been plagued by mismanagement and low test scores.

California, home to one in seven of the nation’s charters, has led the way for charter school accountability. The California Charter School Association has called for the closure of underperforming charters and advocated for tougher academic criteria for charters.

Many of the 3,000 charter leaders who attended the conference this week enthusiastically embraced Rhee on Wednesday.

Appointed to lead Washington, D.C. schools in 2007, Rhee’s tenure quickly turned controversial. She imposed a teacher appraisal system heavily weighted with test-score data and closed underperforming schools. Rhee was pushed to the national forefront when she was prominently featured in “Waiting for Superman,” the 2010 documentary film that touted the charter movement and offered a grim image of traditional public schools.

Rhee and her nonprofit, StudentsFirst, advocate for parent empowerment and the need to abolish “last in, first out” seniority-based union hiring rules. She believes teacher quality is more important than class size.

A former teacher, Rhee’s mayoral appointment to lead Washington schools was criticized, in part, due to her lack of experience running a district, or even serving as an administrator.

She arrived in San Diego on the heels of the San Diego school board’s decision to name elementary school principal Cindy Marten as its next superintendent.

Rhee’s advice to Marten: “Good luck. Don’t let the crazies run you out of town.”

Can Marten learn from Rhee?

Looking back on her time running Washington schools, Rhee said she learned an important lesson too late: communicate and market your plans to the public.

“How you do things is just as important as what you do,” she said. “That’s where we fell short.”